Christmas Gifts

The tradition of giving gifts at Christmas supposedly grew out of the biblical story of the Three Wise Men who came from "the East" to bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the infant Jesus.

Nowadays, the tradition has become something a bit more crazy, with the gift shopping frenzy beginning shortly after the Fourth of July, nearing its peak on Black Friday*, and culminating in a last-minute rush on Christmas Eve. The resulting piles of gifts will be greatly admired on Christmas morning, and largely forgotten by Epiphany. And, as parents well know, small children are likely to enjoy the empty boxes more than the gifts themselves.

Each year at this time, you see the news stories that track the cost of the gifts given by the singer's true love in the classic song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." You know the list:

A partridge in a pear tree;
Two turtle doves;
Three French hens;
Four calling birds;
Five golden rings;
Six geese a-laying;
Seven swans a-swimming;
Eight maids a-milking;
Nine ladies dancing;
Ten lords a-leaping;
Eleven pipers piping; and,
Twelve drummers drumming.

For 2013, the cost of those gifts has been calculated as $27,393 - a big jump of 7.7% from the 2012 rate. If one were to go whole-hog and buy the entire list of gifts with all the repetitions in the song (a total of 364 gifts), the bottom line jumps to a staggering $114,651. You can read the complete analysis here.

If the traditional gifts are not your cup of tea**, you can check out some of the offerings identified by Simon Doonan in his article on Slate.com about absurdly expensive gifts for the super-rich. You could, for instance, purchase a yellow-diamond coronet from Tiffany's ... a steal at $335,000***.

If jewelry isn't your thing or you don't have quite that much cash on hand, and your true love is an animal lover, why not give a pregnant giraffe**** - a steal at only $80,000.

How about a real trip - a reservation for a flight into space on Virgin Galactic for just $250,000?

Finally, if you have more money than good taste and want to give something that will send a real message, consider bidding on this hideous antique Greek figure - "A Marble Figure of a Young Satyr Wearing a Theater Mask of Silenus, Roman Imperial, Circa 1st Century AD, with Restorations by Alessandro Algardi, 1628," available from Sotheby's for an estimated $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 ...

Just a few suggestions for gifts for that hard-to-please recipient. My own wish list is much more modest, and I will be happy to send you a copy if you are going to insist on giving me a gift this holiday season.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Black Friday is, of course, the day after Thanksgiving, so named because it is the day when retailers hope to bring their balance sheets into the black. This year, many stores were actually open on Thanksgiving Day itself, which I have seen referred to as "Gray Thursday." Oy.

** And tea is extraordinarily expensive if you buy the more exotic mixtures at a place like Teavana.

*** In case you're keeping track, that would buy the entire twelve days of Christmas list almost three times.

**** Available because the zoo is closing. You have to deal with PETA yourself.

First Snow and General Whining

Well, winter is here in NoVa ... we had a wonderful day yesterday of what is euphemistically called a "wintry mix" - snow, sleet, and freezing rain that left us with about two inches of snow and a little ice. This is enough to bring the nation's capital to its knees ... the Office of Personnel Management has announced that Federal Government workers may telework, take unscheduled leave, or report to work up to two hours late. I'm not allowed to telework and I'm trying to save my leave for a future vacation, so I will be braving the elements to see if my bus actually shows up on time to get me to the Five-Sided Squirrel Cage. Based on previous experience the odds are not good, but we'll see. Our winter storm warning is still in effect until 10:00. Oy.

Plus, I overslept this morning, courtesy of my clock radio that petulantly decided not to go off.

Plus, we just had a momentary power outage that shut down my computer and forced me to reboot and reinstall my Google Chrome browser (which really doesn't like unexpected power surges and outages).

Plus, the Cold From Hell that I have been unable to completely shake for the last few months is back with a vengeance, and it apparently brought a sinus infection with it ... my eyes are red and swollen and teary, so that the world is blurry*.

It's going to be a great day, I can tell.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Perhaps it's better that way.

The Get Off the Phone Song

I've often written about some of the telephone stupidity I've seen over the years. You've seen it, too ... from the guys in the men's room who think a cone of silence descends over them while they're sitting on the throne talking to their girlfriend to the bozoheads who roar down the highway while chattering away and the clueless dumbasses who walk into you because they're too busy texting to watch where they're going, the world is full of people who can't stand to be disconnected from their phones ... people whose phones are smarter than they are.

And so, as I sit here watching out my study window as the snow falls*, here is a little ditty I found this morning courtesy of Miss Cellania - The Get Off the Phone Song ...

Don't thank me, it's all part of the service.

Have a good day. Put down the phone. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Bringing NoVa to its knees.

Cartoon Saturday

If you thought December was going to be better than November, think again ...

South African national hero Nelson Mandela died at the age of 95; North Korea has released the 85 year-old Korean war veteran it held for more than a month in a typically North Korean fit of childish political pique; speaking of North Korea, Amnesty International has released new images of the vast network of North Korean prison camps used by the Kim family to keep the population in line; the US Navy has successfully launched a drone from a submerged submarine, proving its ability to employ drones for fishing as well as hunting; and in Mexico, clueless thieves not only stole a shipment of extremely radioactive cobalt-60, but opened the container to check it out, ensuring that they will die in agony of radiation poisoning before they can be caught and prosecuted for the crime. Today is also the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the US into World War II ... a war which lasted less than half as long as the one in Afghanistan.

Boy, do we need the cartoons ...

Our collection of theme cartoons for this week deals with fish ... which seems appropriate in the context of the fishy behavior of our elected reprehensives.

What games do you suppose fish play in their spare time? ...

I wonder if some aquatic judge imposed it ...

Even fish can have family problems and issues ...

Getting in shape for the courtship season* ...

Clever idea ...

If we have loan sharks, what do sharks have? And how do they threaten their victims? ...

Here's a bonus theme set ... if you've ever owned a bird and were too cheap to buy the sandpaper liners for the floor of the cage, these are for you ... 

And ...

You just had to see this one coming ... 

Finally, I'm reminded of Val Kilmer's line from the hysterically funny movie Top Secret! ... "My name's Nick ... my father thought of it while he was shaving" ...

And that's Cartoon Saturday for this first weekend in December. We are less than three weeks away from Christmas, and the clock is ticking ... the tree is up and decorated, the Christmas cards and letters have all been mailed, and the gift shopping is partly done**. Yee-HAH! Now all I have to do is survive our first winter storm of the season, due to hit us with snow (not so bad) and ice (really bad) tomorrow. I think I'll spend part of the day with a few million of my closest friends, trying to buy lunch meat and toilet paper.

Have a good day. Avoid North Korea. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I had a cartoon many years ago (sadly, now lost) that showed two salmon valiantly struggling up a stream, with one of them plaintively asking the other, "Are you sure she's got a friend?".

** Go, Amazon.com!!

Why We Have an Economic Crisis

I have to go to the dentist this morning, and so I need to spend some extra time cringing and whining in the bathroom. This, of course, limits the amount of time I am able to spend on my blog. With that in mind, here are two examples of why we have an economic crisis in this country ...

and ...

What more can I say?

Come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday ... I'll be back in stride then, and the post-dental visit drooling should be over*.

Have a good day. See you tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Sorry about that visual.

The Curse of Oprah

We've all had the experience of getting - somehow - on e-mailing lists that deliver information in which we have absolutely no interest. These messages may not necessarily be spam, but they are nuisances we didn't ask for and don't care about.

Oprah Winfrey and I are on a collision course over this issue.

About a year ago, an e-mail from "O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine" turned up in my mailbox. "How on earth did I get on Oprah Winfrey's mailing list?", I asked myself as I selected the message and clicked delete without reading it. Oprah may be a nice lady, but my interest in anything she has to say is less than zero ... and, for the record, I have never, ever, read a single issue of her magazine, in print or on line.

The next day, I had another message from Oprah. I deleted this one, too.

This went on for a week or so, with one (and sometimes two or more) messages from Oprah arriving each day, each one offering weight reduction products*, print magazine subscriptions, the latest  Oprah Winfrey-endorsed products, etc, etc, etc.

About six months ago I finally got tired of the whole select message, delete Kabuki dance and opened one of the messages** in search of an unsubscribe option. All the way at the bottom of the message, in .00000769-point type, was a link for "O, The Oprah Magazine E-Mail Preferences." Clicking on this link brought me to a page that allowed me to opt out of a long list of various categories of e-mails from Oprah*** ... one at a time. There was no option to "select all." I duly unchecked each box, supposedly telling an Oprahdrone somewhere**** that I no longer desired to receive that category of e-mails from Ms Winfrey. Upon reaching the end of the list, I found a small notice in even smaller type, telling me that it might take several weeks for the e-mails to stop, and that I would continue to receive such information by snail mail.

Oy.

As it happens, I continue to receive e-mails from Oprah with the same level of frequency and variety of content as before. All of the categories of e-mails I'd indicated I no longer wish to receive have been magically reinstated on the e-mail preferences website.

I am suffering from The Curse of Oprah, and I think there's only one way to cure it without hiring a specialist from e-curseremoval.com - the same way that Oprah evidently has ...

So in the meantime, if you would like me to forward you Oprah's latest offers on weight reduction, TV schedules, magazine subscriptions, hair and makeup, fashions, or whatever, let me know and I'll forward you all the information you could ever want. And more.

Have a good day. Don't have it with Oprah if you can help it.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I'm stouter than I used to be in high school and college, but come on, now ...

** Not something one should normally do, as it sends a magic message to the sender telling him/her that some clueless chump actually opened the message.

*** All of them pre-checked to indicate that I wanted to receive this critical information.

**** Probably India, Bangladesh, or some such outsourced place.

The Ass Clown of the Month Award for December, 2013

Once again, the time has come to designate our Ass Clown of the Month - the individual or organization that, because of its egregious behavior, exemplifies the qualities of ass clownery that make us shake our heads and go he/she/they did what??

This month, the coveted award goes to ...

The Government of China

for its diplomatic ineptitude and blissfully tone-deaf approach to foreign relations in unilaterally establishing an Air Defense Interception Zone (ADIZ) which seeks to promote Chinese hegemony over a set of islands in the East China Sea that are claimed by both China and Japan. 

By taking this action and threatening foreign aircraft which enter the area, the Chinese have played into the hands of right-wing Japanese nationalists and have given other Asian nations with which China has territorial disputes a reason to doubt China's professed peaceful intentions. It is no coincidence that one of the first things that happened after China's announcement of the ADIZ was that the US, in a pointed gesture of support for its Asian allies, sent two unarmed B-52 bombers on a screw-you sortie through the zone without the prior announcement demanded by the Chinese.

All nations establish air defense zones. This is a legitimate defensive measure and there's nothing wrong with it. But by unilaterally imposing an ADIZ which reinforces a political demand for sovereignty over disputed territory (and overlaps defense zones already imposed by other countries), refusing to acknowledge that other nations may have legitimate claims over the same territory, and refusing to discuss or negotiate* the action, the Chinese Government has richly earned its designation as our Ass Clown of the Month for December, 2013.

Check the deed on your house ... the Chinese government may try to put a claim on it.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Who do they think they are ... Republicans?

The Knockout Game

You may have read of the recent spate of random attacks in which young people approach a victim and strike the person as hard as possible, with the aim of rendering the victim unconscious with one blow. This bizarre and hateful activity is known as "The Knockout Game," and it makes you wonder what we've come to. Here's an excerpt from a longer article by CNN's Morgan Winsor ...

"Youth violence expert Chuck Williams blamed the media and parents for what he called extreme aggression by America's youths. Negative attention, he said, is often rewarded.

"'That's America. America loves violence, and so do our kids,' he said. 'We market violence to our children and we wonder why they're violent. It's because we are.'

"Williams, a professor of psychology and education at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said some young people are desperate for attention. He called it the 'Miley Cyrus effect,' where teens will do anything to get noticed, no matter how unconscionable.

"'These kids know the consequences,' he said. 'They want to get arrested. They want to get caught, because they want that notoriety. They know they won't go away forever because they're kids. It's a win-win all around for them.'"

What sort of example are parents setting, and what are we teaching our children when their idea of a game is brutally assaulting a random stranger? Are our children indeed so desperate for attention that they find it necessary to injure others in order to "be noticed?"

I think there are a lot of negative things coming together to create this unfortunate trend*.

One is the glorification of violence in television and the movies, much of it loud and cartoonish and not reflective of the real blood and terror that's involved with all the gunfire and explosions and fights that are choreographed in blazing color and thundering sound on the screen.

Another is the abdication of personal responsibility for one's actions, in which bad things are justified by all sorts of excuses that put the blame everywhere but on the perpetrator.

The increasing anonymity of modern life also plays a role. Our children spend more time in impersonal contacts on social media than actually dealing with real people, and this can make it difficult to relate to live, breathing persons. This is related to the idea I explored a few posts back about the lost art of conversation ... if you only communicate via SMS using OMGs and LOLs, it can be tough to actually talk to someone.

Many of us have an unfortunate idea that unlimited freedom is the ultimate purpose of America. Don't tread on me is one mantra ... leave me alone, it's a free country, and get the government off my back** are others. We focus completely on the rights of the individual, and ignore the responsibilities that go along with them.

If that's what you believe, you deserve what you get ... which might well be a starring role in some bored teenager's YouTube video for The Knockout Game.

Have a good day. Remember the Golden Rule. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I'm not a psychologist, just an observer.

** Unless I need disaster help, or a tax break for my business.

Odds and Ends

Time to clean out the Blog Fodder box ... or, at least, bring the backlog down a little bit ...

Amazon.com has announced that it is working on a system - available in about four or five years - to deliver packages direct to your home by drones. I like this idea. This is the future of Christmas presents for people you don't like ... instead of coal and sawdust, you can deliver a Hellfire missile from the comfort of your own home!

According to this article from NPR, a recent Associated Press poll indicates that Americans are growing more mistrustful. And why not? Politicians on all sides of any issue accuse each other of lying, identity theft is a serious problem, many charities pay their executives more than they deliver to those who need the help, and a staggering 81% of Americans think that the US government can only be trusted to do the right thing "some of the time." What are YOU lookin' at, huh?

A statuette of a bird featured in the classic 1941 detective thriller “The Maltese Falcon” sold for more than $4 million at auction last week. I hope it wasn't purchased as a gift ... that's a lot of money to give someone the bird, ha, ha.

According to this article from last May, scientists are finding more and more hopeful signs that there may be distant "exoplanets" similar to earth. This may not be the best of all possible worlds, after all ... sorry, Dr Pangloss.

And that's your selection of odds and ends from the Blog Fodder file. It is now time to head back to work, my Thanksgiving break being over. Sigh.

Have a good day in this, one of all possible worlds. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

How to Tell Where a Driver Is From

This is an old piece, but it keeps showing up in new versions with new drivers added. Thanks to my friend Bob for sending this latest version of the chart which allows you to tell, at a glance, the place of origin of a driver ...

One hand on wheel, one hand on horn - Chicago.

One hand on wheel, one finger out window - New York.

One hand on wheel, one finger out window, cutting across all lanes of traffic - New Jersey.

One hand on wheel, one hand paging through newspaper, foot solidly on the accelerator - Boston.

One hand on wheel, one hand gripping nonfat double decaf cappuccino, cradling cell phone, brick on accelerator, and gun in lap - Los Angeles (male).

Steering with knees, one hand gripping nonfat double decaf cappuccino, one hand applying makeup, cradling cell phone, both feet on accelerator, and tiny dog in lap - Los Angeles (female).

Both hands on wheel, eyes shut, both feet on brake, quivering in terror - Ohio, but driving in Los Angeles.

Both hands gesticulating wildly in the air, both feet on the accelerator, head turned to talk to someone in back seat - Italy.

One hand on latte, one knee on wheel, foot on brake, playing video game on cell phone - Seattle. 

One hand on wheel, one hand on hunting rifle, alternating between both feet on the accelerator and both feet on brake, throwing McDonald's bag out the window - Texas.

Four-wheel drive pick-up truck, shotgun mounted in rear window, beer cans on floor, squirrel tails attached to antenna - West Virginia.

Two white-knuckled hands gripping wheel, blue hair barely visible above dashboard, driving 35 in the left lane on the Interstate with the left blinker on - Florida.

Steering with left knee, right foot keeping accelerator fully depressed, texting with both hands, shouting into cell phone cradled on one shoulder - Washington, DC.

Left lane, 250 mph, headlights flashing to clear oncoming traffic - Germany.

Any other ideas? Leave a comment.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo